4. Benefits of grazing vs. corn feeding:
• Managed grazing restores biodiversity below the soil
line.
• Perennial pasture sequesters carbon.
• Cattle can graze even through snow,
saving costs of supplemental feed.
• 100% grass-fed beef is healthy
food for humans.
• Raised right, it is consistently
tasty, tender and marketable.
8. No GMO’s in grass yet (except Alfalfa)
90% of corn & soy in the US is GMO
Emeritus Professor from Purdue University
Don Huber says:
“He prefers DDT to Glyphosate”
Glyphosate works by starving the minerals in
the soil that starve the minerals in the plant
that starve the animal that eats the plant that
starves the human that eats the beef.
9. Corn feeding: bad for the soil
bad for the climate
bad for bovine health
bad for meat eaters
How we grow food is critical to survival of the planet as we know it—not just because we need food, but because industrial agriculture is making us vulnerable to floods and drought and is one of the drivers of climate change.
The U.S. corn crop is estimated to be 13.8 billion bushels this year. This is how it will be utilized: 43% for animal feed; 30% for ethanol production; 10% for high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients of processed foods. Another 10% or so exported. We don’t need any of this. We can produce protein for humans—beef—on grass alone. No corn, ever.
To grow corn on the current scale, farmers use industrial methods: monoculture plantings, which demand herbicides, pesticides and chemical nutrients, and has led to the disappearance of the carbon “sponge” from the soil. While carbon dioxide is central to climate change, carbon is essential for plants—they take the CO2 from the air to make stable sugars, which are moved into the soil by the root exudates and fixed there—thus reducing greenhouse gas. But we need deep-rooted perennial grasses and grazing ruminants to achieve this.
In contrast, 100% grass-fed cattle production means healthy soil and healthy meat. This new paradigm can eliminate the problems of the current CAFO/ corn system by working with the natural soil biology. Grazing buffalo created the deep, fertile soil of the Great Plains; likewise, grazing cattle can restore soil health to our farmlands.
With millions of acres plowed for corn, we are recreating the Dust Bowl. This is because we are destroying the the Soil Food Web: a subterranean army of fungi, bacteria, protozoa and nematodes. In healthy soil they work incessantly, breaking down minerals and nutrients for plants to consume. The plants symbiotically feed the soil and carbon is stored in a stable form for a “rainy day”. When the rain comes, the carbon absorbs and hold the moisture rather than letting it run to the rivers in excess. In drought the healthy soil releases water vapor and cools the soil surface.
This is the root of a plant with its hair, where all this magic of transport, symbiosis and biological growing takes place, as you can see via a microscope. The healthy soil food web generates better quality food for the plant, which results in what we call nutrient dense or quality food.
The herbicide glyphosate (AKA as “Round Up”), widely used in the industrial system, is used with corn plants that are genetically manipulated to be “Round up ready,” i.e. the corn will resist the killing impact of the glyphosate. The glyphosate starves the minerals in the soil so they are not available to the weeds OR to the corn—and therefore are not available to the animal that eats the corn and in turn to the human who eats the animal. The ears of corn shown here were set out to see which a wild animal would prefer: the industrial product or the organic product grown without pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. The squirrel chose the organic corn, but humans are not as free to choose, since “industrial” corn grown with glyphosate is the norm.
Cary Fowler and Patrick Mooney note in their book Shattering: Food , Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity, the relationship between dwarf seeds and chemical fertilizers is “akin to the relationship of the chicken and the egg. The fertilizers (and herbicides) made the new varieties possible. The new varieties made the fertilizers necessary.”
Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) for cattle create acid resistant E Coli, eliminate Vitamin K2 from beef, change the Essential Fatty Acids in meat to an unhealthy ratio for humans, and allow GMO and glyphosate to block nutrients from the human diet. Industrial corn is subsidized and therefore “cheap”. Approximately $4.5 billion per year in US government support between 2000 and today went to corn; 45 to 60% of that went livestock production. The industry is feeding “cheap” (subsidized) corn to ruminants whose natural food is grass. Corn sickens them.
This is an aerial photo of a feedlot. The grid you see are the pens which house 50 to 100 animals typically, and the horizontal lines are the roads for the feed trucks. The object to the right is the manure “lagoon”. Everywhere you see brown, think: carbon being oxidized. The only thing green in the photo is the runoff from the feedlot.
100% grass as a production modality avoids the environmental problems of the CAFO and feeding ruminants a high energy/starch diet. The carbon remains fixed in the soil and the ruminants are eating grass, which is the feed they are designed to digest.
What we are replicating in the process of grazing correctly is the positive, symbiotic relationship of herbivores to the land. Using the tools of grazing correctly stimulates soil biology, captures carbon in a stable form quickly, heals the land and at the same time generates clean, healthy protein for the human diet. This production is totally solar powered rather than fossil fueled.
One strand of electric fence allows us to manage the consumption of grass for optimal health and growth while providing the requisite “rest” for the grass-soil ecosystem to function at a high level.
Allan Savory develop the concept of Holistic Planned Grazing and has spent his career demonstrating how it works around the world. The proposition is that humans can reverse desertification by the judicious application of herbivores to the land. The stimulation of nutrients and the establishment of organic matter (read carbon) in the soil creates the “sponge” that holds water in the soil and prevents run off.
“I can stop the flooding of the Mississippi, cure the drought in the American West and cure human obesity. You just need to give me the states of Illinois, Iowa and Indiana and a big herd of cattle.”
Consumers can choose this solar, Non-GMO option of agricultural production by voting with their food dollars. Pick 100% grass-fed and finished beef-non kinda, sortof almost completely grass fed beef. This trumps local, organic free range etc.
If the cattle finishing on grass alone is done well, the meat flavor is exceptional. Renowned chef Dan Barber of the Blue Hill restaurants, said of our meat: “The beef was unbelievable. It was among the best I’ve ever had. We all just stood around, amazed at the fat, and the long persistence of taste…like a glass of fine red wine. We were amazed. We have to get some of this beef.”
What can you do as an individual? Go into the store you shop in and bang on the counter and demand 100% grass-fed beef. Tell them you want product of the USA. Explain this story to 10 of your friends. The consumer is the only hope of changing this destructive agricultural system rapidly. Your food dollars reverberate through the food system and create the “pull on the rope” that impacts how farmers farm.
“Pink Slime”
Given a choice, the consumers will vote with their food dollar. Educated consumers have the power to make major changes to our production of beef in the U.S. And 100% grass-fed beef is the ultimate health care system for humans and for the land.
Ridge Shinn, Box 225, Hardwick, MA 01037, ridgeshinn@gmail.com, www.ridgeshinn.com
We have rediscovered the type of cattle that predated the industrial feedlot era and will thrive on a grass-only diet, and are ready to change the way we raise beef in the United States.
